


rewatch

by curiositykilled



Series: tumblr prompts [13]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: (sort of), Alternate Universe - College/University, Baking, Keith is still an alien, M/M, Meet-Cute, Pre-Relationship, Shiro (Voltron) Can't Cook
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-28
Updated: 2019-05-28
Packaged: 2020-03-26 09:24:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19002955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/curiositykilled/pseuds/curiositykilled
Summary: Knocking on the wrong door turns out right.





	rewatch

                  The knock comes at 3:31 PM. It’s the time of day when, normally, the light slants in his window at just the right angle to turn his computer screen to a perfect mirror no matter how high the brightness is and to give him a wicked headache even if he relents and puts on his reading glasses. Normally, the hour passes him by unless he’s checking it to calculate how long he has until 11:59 rolls around and he has to submit the assignment he’s trying to finish.

                  Now, he mutters the time under his breath until it nearly loses meaning. These goddamn cookies are going to be edible.

                  Opening the door, he finds a stranger standing there with their hands shoved deep in their pockets. He's not from the apartment building, because Shiro would recognize him. That jawline isn't exactly forgettable.

                  "You're not Pidge," the stranger greets.

                  "Uh," Shiro says, "no? Can I help you?"

                  "I'm looking for Pidge," the stranger says. "She gave me this address."

                  He's squared his shoulders, dark eyebrows pinching together in the middle. The insistence with which he speaks makes Shiro a little uneasy, but he tries to temper it. Just because he doesn't recognize the stranger doesn't mean he's a bad guy. Shiro doesn't know all Pidge's friends, of course.

                  "Sorry, she must've written it down wrong. If you tell me your name, I can let her know you came by," he offers.

                  He's not about to tell the stranger which of the neighboring apartments is Pidge's. If he's being over-cautious, then the worst case scenario is that one of her friends will have to take an extra bus ride out here some other time.

                  The stranger's shoulders slump, all the irritation and tension suddenly gone slack. He reaches a hand up to push back through his bangs, clearing them from his eyes and giving Shiro a better view of his face. If Shiro weren't worried about his intentions, the guy would be pretty – the kind Shiro would approach at a bar if he was feeling brave.

                  "Shit," the stranger says on an exhale. "Sorry. I'm Keith. We're supposed to work on a paper for our ethics class. I can just message her."

                  "Wait – Keith?"

                  He knows that name. Pidge has talked about a Keith before – Lance, too. Shiro relaxes, his protectiveness easing like a sigh.

                  The stranger eyes him a little warily, and Shiro hurries to get ahead of any misinterpretations his sudden relaxation might engender.

                  "Katie just had to take care of something with her family, but she should be back in an hour or so," he says. "I'm Shiro – her brother Matt's roommate. If you don't want to bother with bussing back and forth again, you can hang out in our apartment till she gets back."

                  Keith still holds himself a little tautly, turned so that he's almost in a defensive posture, and eyes Shiro a minute longer. Shiro does his best to look non-threatening. In athletic clothes and a flour-encrusted apron, he can't believe he looks that intimidating.

                  "You don't mind?" Keith asks.

                  "Nah, I'm just watching _Lord of the Rings_ and making cookies," Shiro says.

                  After another uncertain beat, Keith nods and relents.

                  "Okay," he says. "Thanks."

                  "No problem," Shiro says, stepping back to hold the door open and let Keith through.

                  He's not as short as he looked slouching in front of the door; smaller than Shiro, sure, but probably still enough taller than Pidge to annoy her. Keith stops just inside the door, as if unsure where to go next, and he follows readily when Shiro leads the way into the kitchen. His laptop sits on the peninsula, Gimli frozen in mid axe swing on the screen. As Shiro goes around, tapping the space bar as he passes, to check on the cookies, Keith settles onto a stool.

                  "Sorry, it's right in the middle," Shiro says once he's sure the cookies aren't scorched yet.

                  In his periphery, Keith shrugs his shoulders.

                  “I’ve never seen these anyway,” he says.

                  Shiro straightens up fast enough to nearly knock his head into the open cupboard door; his hair still clips it.

                  “You’ve never seen _The Lord of the Rings_?” he asks.

                  Keith hunches his shoulders, tucking into himself, and Shiro mentally chastises himself as he hurries to soothe it over.

                  “I don’t mean – sorry, I was just surprised,” he says. “I didn’t mean it like a bad thing.”

                  He regrets opening his mouth with every word.

                  “I mean, there are a ton of classics I’ve never seen,” he continues, wishing his mouth would just stop. “And they’re so long it’s definitely a commitment.”

                  Keith’s tilted his head, watching Shiro with something like a smile pressing at his lips. Shiro closes his mouth, gives a sheepish smile, and turns to cleaning up the kitchen’s worth of dishes laying around on the counter with screaming and kill counts as background noise.

                  “The music’s cool,” Keith says when Shiro’s wrist-deep in sudsy water and Helm’s Deep is lost.

                  “Yeah?” Shiro says, trying to remind himself how to respond in moderation.

                  “Yeah,” Keith says. “One of my friends is really big into music. He’d like it.”

                  Rinsing off the last bowl, Shiro shakes the soap bubbles from his hands before turning off the tap.

                  “Howard Shore, that’s the composer, wrote a bunch of the themes before they’d even filmed,” he says. “And they like, grow and change with the characters so it’s really part of the story, too.”

                  The water slows in a puddle halfway down the drain, and Shiro scowls at it, debating whether it’s better to turn on the disposal and drown out the movie or to let the water slowly drizzle down on its own. He’s never been good at waiting, but it seems rude to interrupt the show.

                  “So is this like your favorite movie?”

                  He looks up in surprise. Keith is watching him instead of the movie, and Shiro almost wants to pause it so that he doesn’t miss out but manages to hold back. Grabbing the towel off the rack over the sink, he sets to rubbing his hands dry instead.

                  “Uh, not exactly. I always watched them with my grandma over winter holidays,” he explains, “so they’re kinda near-and-dear.”

                  It had started with _The Hobbit_ , back when he was so young it was hard to tell the story from his own dreams and imagination. She’d read it to him at night, lulling him to sleep with the cadence of her voice and the rhythm of the words. She’d always done her best to sing the songs from the book, making up the melody as she went. Even after he’d seen the movies, it was her voice to which the songs belonged.

                  “So what’s your favorite then?” Keith pressed.

                  He really was missing some of the best scenes, and Shiro focused on folding the towel in thirds and hanging it from the rack so the edges were even. It’s not like he hasn’t seen this movie a dozen times already, and if Keith isn’t interested, he’s not going to force him to watch. Even if it feels like a kind of blasphemy to talk over them.

                  “Uh, _Star Trek_?” he offers.

                  Keith wrinkles his nose, surprise a startled exhale as he smiles. It seems a reflexive reaction, as if he hardly has control over it.

                  “Those cheesy old space movies?” he asks.

                  Shiro shrugs, grinning. He refuses to be sheepish about this.

                  “Yeah,” he says. “I mean, sure they’re silly and the special effects are, well, ancient, but it’s got a good message and it’s fun.”

                  To his surprise, Keith doesn’t laugh at Shiro’s explanation. His smile softens, turns from something startled and laughing to something almost soft. It gives his whole face a different cast, like a flashlight traded for a candle, its light gentler as it traces over the sharp angles of his face.

                  “Is that what made you join the Garrison?” Keith asks.

                  This time, Shiro laughs. It’s not the first time he’s been asked, but usually it’s not within twenty minutes of meeting him.

                  “Nah,” he says. “I was obsessed with space as a kid, so it was kind of the natural path. I got a kiddy space suit when I was like six.”

                  A grin pulls up the edge of Keith’s lips, one-sided. Shiro leans his hip against the counter, folding his arms together loosely.

                  “What about you?” he asks. “I’m guessing it wasn’t a movie.”

                  “No,” Keith agrees, shaking his head. “Mom’s a pilot, and I grew up just like twenty minutes from the Garrison.”

                  Shiro mentally runs through the pilots he knows, trying to place one who could be Keith’s mom. He gives up pretty quickly; there are just too many and no way of telling who could be it.

                  “I didn’t know there were any towns that close,” he admits.

                  The nearest one he knows is an hour away. It doesn’t totally surprise him that there could be some po-dunk little town out in the desert, but he is curious. Over the years, he’s covered a good bit of ground on his bike.

                  “There aren’t,” Keith admits, rubbing the side of his neck. “We kinda lived in the middle of nowhere.”

                  Intrigued, Shiro raises an eyebrow but resolves not to pry. A pilot and her kid living out in the middle of the desert alone is certainly not the strangest story to ever come out of the Garrison – but it does raise a few questions.

                  Before he can ask, the oven timer squeals, and Shiro jolts hard enough to bash his elbow into the edge of the counter. Swallowing down a litany of profanity and blinking back some tears, he grabs the oven mitt from the counter and tugs out the baking sheet.

                  The cookies, once he’s settled the sheet on top of the stove, don’t look terrible, exactly. They’re not quite the color he expected, and there are deep cracks running through the tops – but that just means they’re baked through, right?

                  He can feel more than see Keith lean over to get a better look.

                  “Are you making those for something?” he asks.

                  His voice is carefully neutral.

                  “No,” Shiro admits. “I just really wanted cookies.”

                  Behind him, Keith breathes out a chuckle that sets Shiro to laughing, and, in minutes, they’re both laughing aloud. He’s braced his hand against the counter to keep from folding in half, shoulders shaking with it.

                  When he can finally straighten up, it’s to find Keith biting his bottom lip, as if to contain the laughter still apparent in his eyes and grin.

                  “They might be edible?” Shiro offers.

                  Keith shrugs, tips of his teeth peeking out.

                  “Only one way to find out,” he says.

                  Shiro turns back to the cookies, eyeing them uncertainly. There’s a quiet thud as Keith drops down from his stool, and walks over to settle just to Shiro’s right side. Heat radiates off him, enough that Shiro skin pebbles up. He glances up to find Keith studying the cookies as if trying to find the least terrible one by sight alone.

                  “You really don’t have to,” Shiro says. “I don’t want to make you sick before Pidge even gets here.”

                  Keith shrugs, an easy roll of his shoulders. His focus has shifted back to a grin when he looks up, and there’s a glint of something like a challenge in his eyes. _Oh no,_ Shiro thinks. _He’s going to get me in so much trouble._ Not that Shiro’s ever had a problem on his own – but usually one of his friends at least acts like something approaching impulse control. Keith’s look now has Shiro doubting there’s anyone who could stop him.

                  “Nah, we’re in this together,” Keith says. “Come on, which one are you trying?”

                  Wincing, Shiro finally selects the one with the most obvious chocolate chips. They have to drown out whatever other weird flavors and textures are happening. Keith plucks up one that’s still got weird little spikes and peaks sticking out of it, as if the dough didn’t settle at all after Shiro pulled it off the spoon.

                  “Cheers,” Keith says, tapping their cookies together.

                  They bite in at a same time. It’s…dense. Chewing takes longer than Shiro would have expected, and the bite sticks in his throat when he swallows. Aside from the chocolate, there isn’t much taste at all. He’s pretty sure the dough he swiped off the spoon had more flavor. Keith’s expression is neutral, almost thoughtful as he chews. There’s a long moment after they both swallow where they simply stand there in contemplation with ugly cookies in one hand each.

                  “Honestly,” Keith says finally, “they’re better than my mom’s.”

                  Shiro is pretty sure he shouldn’t admit that. At least not out loud. Keith takes another bite and crunches down through the rest of the cookie. Despite himself, Shiro finishes off his own cookie.

                  “They’re better than last time,” he concedes.

                  Last time, they hadn’t been edible. The only way to tell where the chocolate was by looking where the gaps in the charcoal were, like the chocolate had been vaporized.

                  “Sorry we missed the movie,” Keith says, leaning against the counter to look over his shoulder at Saruman standing before his army.

                  “It’s okay. I’ve seen it before,” Shiro says.

                  Keith makes a noise like a hum, low in his throat. He looks back at Shiro, considering, before raising his eyebrows.

                  “Wanna watch it again?” 


End file.
